It’s been a little over a year since Virat Kohli announced his retirement from Test cricket, making him just a one-format international. It’s a format that isn’t played as widely now as it used to be before the 20-over revolution, but paradoxically, the 50-over World Cup remains the most coveted cricketing silverware, shading both the World Test Championship trophy and the T20 World Cup.
Kohli is the unquestioned boss of the modern 50-over game, even though he has some 3,500 fewer runs than the supreme master, Sachin Tendulkar. During the home World Cup in 2023, he went past the little man’s long-standing record of 49 centuries; Kohli now boasts 54 hundreds in a tally of 14,797 runs (average 58.71, strike-rate 93.82). He is inarguably the greatest chaser the sport has seen, reeling in targets with consummate ease.
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Watching him go about his business in IPL 2026, you wonder sometimes why he called time on his T20 international career immediately after his Player of the Final-winning performance at the 2024 T20 World Cup. In 13 innings this season, he has amassed 542 runs, at an excellent strike-rate of 164.74. Of the top five run-getters, only KL Rahul (533 runs, 171.93) has a better strike-rate; on Sunday during Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s comfortable win over Punjab Kings that made the defending champions the first team to qualify for this season’s playoffs, Kohli topped 500 runs for a season for a record-extending ninth time.
He is still driven enough, motivated enough, intense enough, to fling himself around, to hunt down every ball like his life depended on it, to run between the wickets like that aspect will soon go out of fashion. His passion is unmistakable, his competitive instincts hardly dimmed by the passage of time or the staggering volume of cricket he has played at the highest level. There is much to learn from Kohli, the ultimate professional, the role model to beat all role models when it comes to commitment, to discipline, to the ultimate desire to be the best version of himself every time he steps on the park.
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There is no disputing what the 37-year-old’s driving force is. The next 50-over World Cup, in the Africas, is some 17 months away but clearly, it is in the Kohli crosshairs. Otherwise, as he himself pointed out in an oblique kind of way in a no-holds-barred RCB podcast, what is he doing on the cricket field when he can so easily put his feet up, bask in justified glory and spend all his time with his young family?
An eloquent speaker who seldom struggles for perspective or for words to explain his thoughts, Kohli spoke as much from his heart as his mind when he said, among other things, “My perspective is very clear. If I can add value to the environment that I am a part of and the environment feels like I can add value, I will be seen. If I am made to feel like I need to prove my worth and my value, I’m not in that space. Because I am being honest to my preparation.
“I am being honest to how I approach the game. I put my head down. I work hard. I am very thankful to God for giving me everything that I have been given in my cricketing career. And I feel very blessed and grateful for the opportunity. And when I arrive to play, I put my head down.”
Kohli possibly hurt, angry
Not often has Kohli felt the need to talk about his exploits – which are there for everyone to see – or his commitment, which has been held up as a shining mirror. But clearly, there is something that’s rankling him, whether it is the constant question marks over his potential participation at the World Cup or the external demand to keep proving that he has still ‘got it’. “I work as hard, if not harder than anyone else. And I play the game in the right way. You want me to run boundary to boundary for 40 overs in an ODI game? I will do that without a complaint. Because I prepare accordingly,” he insisted. “I prepare for the fact that I will field 50 overs, every ball like it’s the last ball I’m going to play in my career. And I will bat that way. And I will run between the wickets that way. And I will do everything possible for the team.
“After operating like this, if I have to be in a place where I have to prove my worth and value, that place is not meant to be for me.”
Depending on how one wants to view these comments, Kohli can be perceived to be angry, hurt, defiant or throwing down a challenge. One suspects Kohli himself will label those remarks as ‘honest’ rather than anything else because if there is one element that has been a constant in his storied cricketing journey, it is absolute integrity. Whether these are just off-the-cuff remarks or aimed at one, all or none of Gautam Gambhir (head coach), Ajit Agarkar (chief selector) or Shubman Gill (ODI captain) is open to speculation, which has understandably been plentiful in the last four days since the podcast dropped.
Even the most diehard of Kohli’s fans – of whom there are millions – will concede that his last few years in Test cricket were consistently inconsistent. Between 21 February 2020 and 5 January 2025, when he played the last of his 123 Tests, Kohli averaged just 30.72 across 39 matches. Those modest returns pulled his career average down from a stunning 54.97 at the end of 2019 to a more human 46.85 when he announced his retirement, a drop of nearly eight runs an innings which amply illustrated his travails and tribulations. If, ahead of the tour of England last year, he had been nudged into retirement, one could see some logic, however bitter a pill to swallow that might be.
But clearly, Kohli isn’t now amused by the ‘will-he, should-he’ debate with regard to the World Cup nearly a year and a half away. Certainly not when he is firing on all cylinders, when he somehow seems to have found a way to make time stand still. “I work out, we eat well at home. It is because I like living that way. It is not only to play cricket. So that is where I am. We are at like mid-‘26. But I’ve been asked so many times, do you want to play ’27 (World Cup)’?’ he remarked. “I know the answer. Like, why would I leave my home, you know, get my stuff over…? Of course, if I’m playing, I want to play cricket. I want to carry on. Playing a World Cup for India is amazing. But as I said, the value has to be two sides.”
Enough said, Virat, and perfectly said, too. Hopefully, the ‘other side’ sees the value of having in their ranks a champion that has been there, done that, but is still doing it too. And remarkably well, at that.